


warm egg tarts like the sun

by GREENIING



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angel Huening Kai, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Human Choi Soobin, M/M, Nightmares, Sleeping Together, a spin off from the last fic, kudos if you get the refrences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26831377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GREENIING/pseuds/GREENIING
Summary: "When they don't suck, what are they about?"Kai considers it. He's only had one good dream from what he can remember. "You, mostly."There's a pause, and Kai thinks he can hear a sharp intake of breath. "Me? Seriously? You've got no imagination. You've seen all of creation, right?""Yes, but you're my favorite part of it."
Relationships: Choi Soobin & Huening Kai, Choi Soobin/Huening Kai
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66





	warm egg tarts like the sun

Kai has been fallen for exactly three days, seven hours, sixteen minutes and eleven seconds when he realizes that there might, in fact, be a slight problem beyond the obvious. In fairness, the entirety of those three days have been spent doing things that are very big and important – he has stabbed two leviathans to a righteous death and exorcised two demons, as well as eaten six egg tarts and watched another installment in the continuing saga of the pizza man – but now there are no more important things to be done, and he is lying in bed in a motel room somewhere in the outskirts of Mokpo and he can't sleep.

He knows that this is not an uncommon problem. There are plenty of humans, he knows, who find it difficult to get to sleep. He's not alone in that respect. He's seen Soobin turn fitfully in wakefulness, seen Yeonjun punch pillows in annoyance when sleep won't come (although he won't tell either of them this, because for some reason they don't seem to like it when he watches them from dark corners) and he knows that this isn't an entirely unnatural problem.

The part of this problem that is unusual, however, is that he's never slept before. Not that he can remember, anyway.

He's never lain in the dark until dreams come, never been consumed by unconsciousness without a punch to the jaw, and it's new territory and he doesn't know how to explore it. He doesn't know how to sleep. He's always thought it would come naturally, like breathing, but so far, it hasn't.

The angel has been lying in bed and staring into the darkness for four hours when he decides to do something about it.

Sitting up, he swings his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the bristle of the cheap nylon motel carpet between his toes – he still finds it odd, that human way of focusing on even the smallest senses – and stands up, grabbing his own room key and padding over to the door of the motel room. He opens it and walks past rooms 12 and 13, standing still in front of room 14.

It's locked, of course, but Kai hasn't been hanging around with the Chois for years without learning anything.

It only takes a few minutes before Kai has successfully managed to unlock the door using his key, and he steps into Soobin's room as quietly as he can, closing the door behind him and making sure to press it firmly closed. He pads over to the bed where Soobin lies, fast asleep and snoring lightly. Kai has always been perplexed by this, because Soobin is always poking fun at Yeonjun for how much he snores, saying he sounds like a wounded animal and then laughing raucously at Yeonjun's offended look. Kai doesn't think it sounds amusing at all. If anything, he thinks it's reassuring. It means that the person is lost in themselves, and he doesn't think that there's any state of higher contentment than that.

He reaches the bed and stands there, stock-still, for a few moments, before remembering what Soobin had told him about watching him sleep. Not wanting to be creepy, he reaches over and grasps Soobin's shoulder lightly, shaking him to try and rouse him.

Soobin just grunts, showing no signs whatsoever of waking up.

Kai tightens his grip. "Soobin," he hisses. Soobin doesn't respond, except to roll over on his side, further away from Kai. "Soobinie!"

Soobin mumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘i want to eat bread', but probably isn't, and Kai sighs.

"Soobin," he says, voice becoming more desperate. "Soobinieeee, please wake up."

Soobin groans, and opens his eyes blearily. "What's wrong?" he groans, voice coarse with sleep, and then his eyes widen. "And how did you get in?"

Kai pouts. "I used the key," he replies carefully. "I can't sleep."

Soobin yawns, stretching his arms above his head. "Count sheep," he says, still gruff from being woken up.

Kai tilts his head to the left. There is a very obvious problem with Soobin's command.

"B-But there are no sheep in this motel," he replies, voice weak.

Soobin groans. "Kai, seriously..." He huffs, clearly fed up, and pulls himself into a sitting position, fumbling to turn on the light on the bedside table.

"Help me." he says helplessly.

"Fine," Soobin sighs and shakes his head. "Come here you big baby."

Kai blinks.

"I'm not going to wait forever," says Soobin, looking at him, still bleary-eyed, and Kai realizes that he has pulled back the bedsheets.

He frowns. "Waiting for what?" he asks. Perhaps this is a human tradition that he's not aware of. Perhaps Kai should go back to his room and pull back his own bedsheets. It might help, for all he knows.

Soobin pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes out very slowly. "Just get in," he says, impatience lingering so strongly in his voice that even Kai can't miss it, and so he does what Soobin says, carefully getting into the bed, lying arrow-straight and as far from Soobin as he can manage so as not to annoy him further. He pulls the sheets up to his chin and lies staring up at the ceiling. There's a tiny patch of mold near the light fitting. It's shaped like a skull, and he unconsciously shudders.

"Thank you," he says, and Soobin huffs what might be a laugh.

"It's fine. Yeonjun used to get insomnia all the time, after Beomgyu," he says, and Kai doesn't miss the way his voice catches slightly. "Now, go to sleep," he adds, switching the light off again and burrowing back down under the covers, lying on his side and facing away from Kai, curled up like a comma.

Kai can feel Soobin's spine pressed against his own side from where they lie inevitably close in the single bed, and he shivers where their skin touches, unused to the contact. He's aware that humans often share beds. He has seen Soobin and Yeonjun share beds with people in the past; sometimes these would be people they were having ‘adult-things’ with, and sometimes they would be people like Kai, people who needed comfort or just a place to sleep. It's the human condition, he thinks, that people are better with others.

It's the last thing he thinks before the swell of darkness overwhelms him like a black tide, and he falls asleep.

* * *

The world is burning.

They are all burning, and all around them are embers and ashes and the flames are dying there and growing here and spreading and licking at the very corners of the Earth, and Kai can hear the souls scream as they flee from the blackened bodies discarded across the world, he can see them wither as they burn burn burn before they get to Heaven –

"Kai - "

– and there is Soobin's soul, and it too is burning –

"Hey, Kai - "

– and Yeonjun's soul too, a sickly, ghostly little thing, all white before it fades –

"Huening Kai!”

– and then there is darkness, and –

“Wake up!"

– and Kai is sitting up and gripping Soobin's arm in both hands, fingernails digging into his skin deep enough to leave little crescent moons, and he can't feel Soobin's soul any more, but he can feel his flesh, and it's almost enough. Soobin brushes his thumb across Kai's forehead, sweeping a strand of hair out of the way, and Kai can feel how his breath is sticking in his throat, how his skin is sweat-soaked and his heart is beating like it might escape his ribcage, but –

"You're alive."

Soobin frowns, but he looks concerned rather than angry.

"You OK?" he asks.

Kai looks up at him, eyes thick with tears. "You were burning," he manages to say through ragged breaths and his racing pulse. "You were - "

"Jesus Christ, Kai," mumbles Soobin, and he tightens his grip – Kai only realizes now that Soobin has both his arms around his waist, and he wonders why that wasn't the first thing he'd noticed – and manouvres them both into lying down again, although this time they are not so far apart. They're not far apart at all – Soobin's arms are still around Kai's waist and he is pressed up behind him, a long line of reassuring flesh and bone and blood, and he isn't burning at all.

Soobin is here. Soobin is alive. Kai could weep for the joy of it.

After a few minutes of silence, Kai's heart has settled back into something resembling its normal rhythm – and that in itself is terrifying, because Kai has only been human for three days and he's already become accustomed to his heartbeat – and he feels a niggling sense of what very closely resembles curiosity.

"What happened to me?" he asks. "Why did I see those things?"

Soobin shifts a little, and Kai feels the movement. When he replies, his voice tickles the back of Kai's neck. "Those are just nightmares, Kai. Dreams."

Kai shudders. "I don't want them."

"It's not a choice, sadly," says Soobin. "But hey, it's not all bad. You have nice ones too, right?"

Kai thinks of the few fleeting images of happiness he saw before the world burnt, of freckles and long black cars and egg tarts, and nods.

"Y-Yeah."

"See? Dreams don't always suck." Soobin unwinds his arms from around Kai's middle and turns to lie on his back, crossing his hands behind his head. Kai misses the warmth already and instinctively mimics Soobin's movement, lying on his back and staring once more at the ceiling. Soobin watches him, smiling fondly. "When they don't suck, what are they about?"

Kai considers it. He's only had one good dream from what he can remember. "You, mostly."

There's a pause, and Kai thinks he can hear a sharp intake of breath. "Me? Seriously? You've got no imagination. You've seen all of creation, right?"

"Yes, but you're my favorite part of it."

Soobin looks away then, and Kai can see his eyes widen as he exhales sharply. "Jesus, Kai, you can't... you can't go around saying that to people you’ve just met!”

"Why not?" asks Kai, pouting. He doesn't see what's wrong with it. Soobin is his favorite part, followed closely by the plushies, the egg tarts and grape juices. It's not a compliment. It's not a proclamation. It just is.

"Because... Look. You just can't, all right?" Soobin starts worrying at the skin around the nail on his index finger, and Kai thinks he looks more human than he ever has. It makes him want to be brave.

"Not even if it's true?"

He hears the breath catch in Soobin's throat. "Kai, if it's true, you need to seriously re-evaluate your priorities in life."

Kai pouts, and Soobin doesn't meet his eye. Human emotions are difficult He wants to tell Soobin that he has seen his soul – he has seen it shine and he has seen it burn, and it has never been anything but wonderful – but he knows how Soobin feels about 'chick-flick' moments. Instead, he blinks, and says the first thing that comes to mind.

"Taehyunie used to say that to me, too. I was quite spectacularly unmoved by the Grand Canyon." He says it to lighten the mood, but Soobin doesn't reply, and Kai feels his stomach sink. He turns onto his side, facing away from Soobin, and feels instantly colder.

"It's just a really big hole, isn't it?" says Soobin, voice thick with something that Kai can't discern, and Kai nods.

"The biggest," he agrees, and then has an idea. "Apart from that jerk we met in Gangnam."

Soobin snorts, and there's a lingering second that hangs heavy in the air between them, the weighted moment of a decision yet unmade. Then, Kai hears the rustle of the sheets, and he feels warm again. There's a sharp edge of a second where Kai remembers the flames from his dream, but then he feels Soobin's arms around his waist again, and he suddenly can't remember why he had been afraid at all. It was a dream, he thinks. Kai snuggles into the warmth with a contented sigh.

This is real. This is what counts.

"Jesus Christ," says Soobin, sounding amused and serious all at once. Fond, thinks Kai. That's the word he's looking for. "Goodnight, Angel."

"Goodnight, Binnie."

The darkness stretches for another few moments, and Kai thinks that perhaps Soobin has fallen asleep already. He's teetering on the precipice himself; he feels as though he's slept for years and for no time at all. It's hazy; he is in the motel room, and it is dark, but he is also in the backseat and Soobin and Yeonjun are laughing in the front as Kai explains the real meaning of the Old Testament. Everything is blurry. He's dreaming, he realises, in that grey area of half-wakefulness that he's seen on the faces of so many humans, just before they fall asleep and just after they wake up. He is in nowhere land, in limbo, and whatever happens here might not happen at all.

He's not sure whether he dreams the half-whispered proclamation of "you're my favorite, too", but he likes to think that he doesn't.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'm back with another sookai fic~ this particular oneshot is actually a spin off from my last fic because i can't deny that hyuka fits the angel trope too, he's just too ethereal for real, you get me? anyway i hope you enjoy this little oneshot! i'll try to write more sookai in the future because the tag seriously needs to be watered more often lol. thanks for reading!


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